Assignment 1- Game Engines By Sam Whitehead
The purpose of game engines: What is a game engine? - A game engine is a software framework designed for the creation and the development of videogames. Video game developers use these game engines to create video games on videogames consoles, mobiles and computers. What is the purpose of a game engine? - The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection, sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, and a scene graph. This helps the developers of the game create and make their games a lot quicker and easier than it would have been without game engines. History of game engine? – The first game engine made as one was the ‘Space Rogue’ game engine, which was released in 1989. One of the key improvements that this offered the developers was that it could texture map. One of the historic game engines that must be remembered is the ‘Doom’ game engine. It was helpful to the developers as it created a clever illusion of a 3D game while using just basic 2D sprites on the models and characters.
(Right) - Image of ‘space rogue’
Game Engine Components: •
Artificial intelligence – In video games, artificial intelligence is used to generate intelligent behaviours primarily in non-player characters, often simulating human-like intelligence. The techniques used typically draw upon existing methods from the field of artificial intelligence. However, the term game AI is often used to refer to a broad set of algorithms that also include techniques from control theory, robotics, computer graphics and computer science in general. • Sound – In videogames, sound is used to make games seem more realistic or fun etc. For example when your character jumps a sound will play to make the game seem more fun or when your character fires his gun a sound of a gunshot will play to make it more realistic and to make it more enjoyable to the player. So the sound in video games are important as they can make them more enjoyable and this is important to developers that they can easily input sound into their games. • Physics – A physics engine is computer software that provides an approximate simulation of certain physical systems, such as rigid body dynamics (including collision detection), soft body dynamics, and fluid dynamics, of use in the domains of computer graphics and video games. Their main uses are in video games (typically as middleware), in which case the simulations are in real-time. • Collision detection – Collision detection typically refers to the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. In addition to determining whether two objects have collided, collision detection systems may also calculate time of impact and report a set of intersecting points. Collision response deals with simulating what happens when a collision is detected.
(Left) - Image of doom What is portal rendering? - Portal rendering is a computer graphics technique used in video games to limit the amount of pixels rendered at a time. To achieve this effect, most games are composed of sections, and the user can only see a certain area like a room through a door etc. The view will also depend on the angle the player is looking at. With portal rendering, the programmer will often split the games world into portals or sections. When someone is in a certain section, the programmer knows the other sections will not be seen so they do not have to be rendered. This is done by making rooms, with each room being used as a section. This helps games have the ability to have a new room and be able to look inside, it would also help give a great mirror effect as the character could look in the mirror and get a reflection. This could help a game be more realistic.
• Graphics rendering – Graphic rendering is a component of a game engine that creates an image from a model. The files contain data that helps the game engine define the structure of an object and this passes through the rendering process for where the final image is displayed. This is a larger and slower process for 3D graphics but the basics remain the same though.
Examples of game engines: Naughty Dog -
This is a very famous game engines that are responsible for great games such as Uncharted, the last of us and crash bandicoot etc. This is a very popular company and they have a very good engine which enables them to make best-selling games.
Unreal engine-
This is another very famous game engine that has brought us games such as Batman arkham franchise, Gears of war and mirrors edge etc. This engine includes the required software to make games with such a detailed artstyle or world
Cry engine-
Another great game engine is the cry engine as it has made some great games like Homefront, Far cry and Crysis. This engine is very useful for 1st person shooters this is why this is the category that many of their games fall under.